On March 15, 2018, more than 40 Christians from a church in Shanghang County, Fujian, brought food to over 180 seniors in a local nursing home. They also joined in the monthly birthday party and gave cakes and blessings to twelve people.
The next day another church in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian's province, celebrated the local Aogo Festival that falls on January 29th of the Chinese lunar calendar. The church distributed Aogao Porridge to passerbies in an effort to sinicize Christianity.
Aogao Porridge is derived from a Buddhist story about a son's filial piety. A son really loved his deceased mother and went to the netherworld to give delicious meals to her. But a soldier often snatched away the food and his mother had nothing left to eat. So he tried to cook a bowl of porridge made from mixed ingredients of whole grains like Chinese dates, peanuts, sesame, and chestnut. Seeing the dark porridge, the soldier didn't want to have it, so his mother could get a bite. It falls on the twenty-ninth day of the first month of the Chinese calendar. Aogao in Chinese means "the last ninth day of a month", so that's why it is called Aogao Festival.
- Translated by Karen Luo
